Four racehorses fly over the turf in a “flying gallop,” front and hind legs stretched out flat, under a dark, stormy sky. Théodore Géricault painted it during a long stay in England in 1821, for the horse dealer Adam Elmore, who put him up during his visits to London. The pose is physically impossible, as photography would show a few decades later, but Géricault used it to convey speed. In 1872 the scientist Étienne-Jules Marey argued that horses never move like this, a question his and Muybridge's photographs later settled.

The traditional title would make the gray horse in third position the 1821 winner, Gustavus, but the jockeys' colors do not match that race, so it may be an imaginary one. Emperor Napoleon III acquired the painting in 1866. It is in the Louvre in Paris.